"Stuck in the middle with you."

That's a line from a song, I think it's one of Dylan's: "Clowns on the left of me, jokers on the right, and I'm stuck in the middle with you." ......Or something like that.

National Geographic, as the name implies, is about geography. It's primary purpose is not to promote some partisan political ideology. Of course politics is part of geography, since geography is the study of the Earth and the people who live on it. Remember, in elementary school, how geography and history were grouped together under the heading of "social studies"? National Geographic is kind of like that, only they call it all "geography". It's also kind of like when we studied the great religions of the world as part of our history class. They weren't teaching us religion, they were teaching us about religion because religion is part of history. Similarly, National Geographic talks about politics because you need to know something about their politics to understand what is currently going on in the various countries of the world, as well as what went on in their historic past. In the particular article about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it was not their intent to portray either side as the good guys or the bad guys, it was their intent to present an objective historical account of the conflict. The fact that they pissed off both sides equally seems to indicate that they were about as successful in that attempt as anybody could be, given the emotional baggage that goes with a controversial topic like that.

What I meant when I said that all governments were socialist to some degree was that all governments take money from private citizens and use it to finance public services. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Few people would argue that things like national defense, police and fire protection, roads and bridges are not best handled by government. The question is what other things should we delegate to government and what do we want to reserve to the private sector? The  more things the government does, the more socialistic is that government. Hence, my assertion that all governments are socialist by their very nature, varying only in degree.

The joke I told you was about an Englishman and an Irishman arguing over fishing rights. I didn't claim to be the author, I read it somewhere a long time ago, but I don't remember where.

I agree with your last two paragraphs, mostly because it's pretty much what I said in the first place.